Introduction. Color terms constitute a most archaic lexical stratum of any language. Being characterized by vivid ethnocultural specifics, those serve as important elements to the linguistic view of the world. In nature color is an objective and independent phenomenon, while in culture and language color perceptions turn completely subjective. Differences in mentality, unique material culture inherent to each and every ethnos that lives in particular natural surroundings — all the factors have their impacts on color perceptions. And there are virtually no works to have investigated color in the Kalmyk language, i.e. comprehensive studies of color terms still remain in the periphery of Kalmyk linguistics. Goals. The paper analyzes Kalmyk folktales recorded by the Finnish scholar G. J. Ramstedt for a key color symbol — white — in a linguocultural perspective. Results. Traditionally, Mongolic peoples tend to view white as the main color of the spectrum. The comparative analysis of the lexeme цаһaн (Kalm. ‘white’) reveals a number of specific features attributed to the examined color term in unrelated languages (Kalmyk and German). The study concludes that the Kalmyk lexeme comprises a wider range of meanings. It denotes colors of visually perceived objects, and the color scope includes shades from ‘snow white’ to ‘grey’, while in German — from ‘sharply white’ (Germ. blendendweiß) to ‘silver’ (Germ. silber).

Introduction. The article examines spatial uses of the postposition деер in the Kalmyk language. The semantic system of postpositions that form postpositional constructions comprises a complex area of various relations. A remarkable place in the Mongolic languages is occupied by spatial meanings of postpositions, the postposition деер being a most common and productive one therein. Goals. The research aims to describe spatial meanings of the postposition деер in the Kalmyk language. Materials. The work analyzes data selected from various dictionaries, literary and journalistic texts included in the National Corpus of the Kalmyk Language, Kalmyk National Corpus, and the Kalmyk Digital Library. Results. This postposition is mentioned in all dictionaries of Mongolic languages and is a most common and productive lexical unit. It expresses a wide variety of relations resulting from its syntactic ties: spatial, temporal, comitative, target, and quantitative-restrictive values. Along with concrete, real relations this postposition in various speech situations acquires additional, sometimes very abstract meanings based its core seme. The spatial meanings of the postposition деер in the Kalmyk language are considered in detail. In addition to its main meaning — location or movement on the surface — this postposition indicates movement or performing an action over the surface of an object without reaching contact, in close vicinity, near a landmark, and also shows the direction of action. This postposition can express ‘event space’. Conclusions. The analysis of spatial relations expressed by the postposition деер shows a variety of transmitted meanings in various speech situations, as well as features of its use in the Kalmyk language.

Introduction. The article examines languages of some national minorities living in the Hulun Buir Urban District of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (PRC). The study is relevant since the Han majority subjects national minorities to strong linguistic assimilation. Timely study of the languages and dialects of this region is necessary for a comparative analysis with the languages of the Mongolic and Tungus-Manchu peoples living in Russia. Goals. The research primarily aims to examine some aspects of linguistic studies in publications of Inner Mongolia’s philologists. The work solves the following tasks: 1) review of languages and dialects of Hulun Buir ethnic groups, including in publications of Russian researchers; 2) research of some works dealing with the Old Barga dialect of the Mongolian language; 3) analysis of publications on the Dagur language and one scientific article about the Evenki language. Materials. The article analyzes scientific works of researchers from Inner Mongolia, such as Bousian, Enkhabatu, Tseberkhas, Urangua, Yu Shan, Serenbatu. Results. The existing division into languages and dialects has some differences in China and Russia. This unequal linguistic status requires the development of a single generally accepted standard. The Old Barga dialect has preserved a number of words from the language of medieval Mongols. This Barga dialect also borrowed some words from Manchu, Japanese and Russian. Philologists of Inner Mongolia actively study the Dagur language and dialects. They carry out comparative analyses of the latter and Mongolic languages, identify features of the Hailar and Buteha dialects of the Dagur language. So, scientists conducted a sociological survey on whether the Daur people know their native language, as well as Mongolian and Chinese. Professor Serenbat analyzed Evenki verb endings in comparison with Mongolian, Manchu and Dagur ones. Conclusions. The important issue is a standardization of languages and dialects of the region. It must be done in accordance with generally accepted standards in Russia and China. Russian philologists should begin comprehensive studies of the scientific developments of Inner Mongolia’s researchers. The study of the historiography of languages and dialects of Hulun Buir has great prospects.

Introduction. The aricle studies the Cyrillic literacy of Mongolians through the use of sociolinguistic methods. Mongolians had been using the Mongolian script from ancient times through 1921, and since then by the 1930s the traditional script was replaced because it was considered obsolete and feudal. In 1941, Mongolia officially switched to modified Latin alphabet which was used for some time. However, two months later this decision was cancelled, and three months thereafter Cyrillic alphabet was introduced — on March 25, 1941, the Mongolian People’s Republic officially adopted the Cyrillic writing system. Mongolian script has been taught at secondary schools since the mid-1980s and under the influence of democracy and transparency, the national idea of the public has revived, and their current desire is to use the national script officially. Mongolians also use the Latin script in the Internet and mobile telephony. The Law on Mongolian Language was approved in 2013 and is being implemented, and this law stipulates that from 2025 onwards official documents shall be written in Cyrillic and Classical Mongolian. Results. The work investigates how Mongolians use three writing systems — Cyrillic, Latin and Traditional Mongolian. However, the official script (and literacy to be assessed) is still Cyrillic. The paper uses methods of social linguistics to assess Cyrillic literacy among citizens aged 16–30, 31–40, and over 40. The Cyrillic literacy skills are as follows: 16–30 year olds — 47.5 %, 31–40 year olds — 78.4 %, 41 and older — 52.1 %. The average value of Cyrillic literacy skills across all the three age groups is 59.3 %. The influence of Latin alphabet on Cyrillic skills for 16–30 year olds proves a matter of concern.

Introduction. The paper deals with different conditional constructions in Buryat and Kalmyk. Traditionally, the main way to express the conditional meaning in Mongolic languages is a non-finite clause with a converb (there are the conditional form on -bal in Buryat and Khalkha and new marker -xla in Kalmyk). Alongside with it, there are some new conditional constructions with connectives, with conjunction-like markers herbee in Buryat and Khalkha and kemər in Kalmyk co-occurring with a form of conditional converb. The language contact approach presupposes that connectives as well as a structural pattern with a conjunction are frequently borrowed from dominant languages. Thus, the research question of the paper is how to explain the new conditional construction. Results. In particular, the paper discusses the distribution of different types of conditional construction according to the data from Buryat and Kalmyk corpora. It suggests that conjunction-like markers herbee ‘if’ in Buryat and kemər ‘if’ in Kalmyk may be viewed as grammatical interference from Russian. Nevertheless, the form of conditional converb gixlä developing to a connective in Kalmyk is grammaticalized among other forms of the verb gi- ‘say’ and its grammaticalization of a verb of saying to marker of a conditional clause is frequent cross-linguistically.

Introduction. Modality is present in any language at the level of words, phrases, sentences. In this regard, it is not unexpected, that the means of its expression can be observed at most different levels of the language: modality is expressed at the syntactic, morphological, lexical, phonetic levels; very often morphological, syntactic and other means are combined. And, nevertheless, despite the obvious prevalence and universality of this phenomenon, the problem of modality has not yet received its full description, and the literature on modality, functional-modal words in particular, is very limited. Goals. The article raises the question of lexical units — nouns, adjectives, adverbs, which in some conditions perform the functions of modal words due to their tendency to develop secondary uses, in particular, the function of modal words, that reinforce, emphasize a certain segment of a statement. Results. Functional-modal words, having different formal-morphological features and their primary lexical meanings, due to the emotional-expressive connotation inherent in their semantics, can in the message, along with modal words, express their general grammatical meaning - the speaker’s (multi-aspect) attitude to the content your statement or part of it. The considered functional-modal words do not differ from their ‘brothers’ in the lexical and grammatical category, but episodic losses of lexical meaning in connection with the performance of the function of the modal word draw attention to them as a phenomenon, that signifies the possible beginning of obscuring the lexical meaning and subsequent derivational processes — lexicalization, transposition, transition from one part of speech to another. The paper also touches upon the fundamental theoretical issue of including / excluding emotional-expressive meanings in the modality category, which many researchers exclude from the named category, explaining that they do not express the logical-rational qualification of the content of the utterance. The linguistic material, as it seems to the author, resists the division of statements into logical-rational and emotional-expressive, since in many cases, even within the framework of one word, these two aspects appear in an inseparable unity.

Introduction. The article examines some phonetic and morphological features of the Kalmyk language traced in written monuments published by the famous Mongolists John Krueger and Robert Service in the ‘Kalmyk Old-Manuscript Documents of Isaac Jacob Schmidt’ (2002). The book presents facsimiles, transcriptions and translations of epistolary documents into English, which cover the period from 1800 to 1810. Most of the letters — 54 out of 80 — reflect correspondence with the Baga Dorbet Princes Tundutovs, including 18 from Erdeni Taisha, 27 from Tsebek, and 9 more from Jamba Taisha. These written monuments are kept in the archives of the Moravian Brothers Community in Herrnhut (Unitas Fratrum, Eng. ‘United Brothers’) in folder R.15.R.IIa No. 5. Goals. The paper aims at investigating some phonetic and morphological features of the then Kalmyk language discovered in the published letters. Results. The language of I. H. Schmidt’s letters reflects the stage in the development of the Kalmyk language in the late 18th – early 19th centuries characterized by a natural convergence of the phonetic and grammatical norms inherent to the written literary language and living folk speech. The materials of the texts show that the beginning of the 19th century witnessed a process of transition of the combinations -ou and -öü into the long vowels [u:] and [ü:], respectively. It is also noted that in words where the diphthong -iu is historically (traditionally) used, e.g., in the word alčiur — in letters it is transmitted as alčuur, which meets the requirements of live pronunciation. In the language of letters of I. J. Schmidt, when it comes to construct the imperative form of the 2nd person plural, several cases of using the colloquial formant -tan are recorded, instead of the traditional indicator -qtün / -qtun. The past participle, which is historically formed with -qsan / -qsen affixes, also approaches colloquial forms, therefore, there are frequent cases of using -san / -sen forms, which are closer to modern Kalmyk (e.g., xara torγon irsen bolxuna ‘if the black silk arrives’). Linguistic processes associated with the reduction of short vowels of non-first syllables of a word, reduction of morphological formants, etc., are reflected to a greater or lesser extent in the text of the studied monument. Conclusions. Thus, the language of I. Ya. Schmidt’s letters reflects the stage of development of the Kalmyk language at the end of the 18th – beginning of the 19th centuries characterized by a natural convergence of phonetic and grammatical norms of the written literary language and living folk speech.

Introduction. The article deals with the use of nominal plurality markers in modern Khalkha and Buryat. Nominal plurality markers are used optionally in the Mongolic languages. However, in Buryat they are used more often than in Khalkha. Goals. In order to find out how much the figures differ at the moment (and then make some relevant conclusions), the author has collected two small corpora of newspaper articles on politics, economy, culture, and sports published in the Buryat online newspaper Buryad Unen and Mongolian web-based edition Unuudur written from April to August of 2020 — in the period preceding the start of this research, as it was critical for the author to have the utmost up-to-date materials. Materials. The Mongolian mini-corpus comprises 10 032 words, and the Buryat mini-corpus consists of 10 261 words. Newspaper articles have been chosen as study material because publicistic writings absorb language novelties faster and in greater amount than fiction or scholarly works, thus better reflecting the present-day state of the language. The field data could be a more reliable source of material but field work is currently hindered because of the epidemic situation. The author decided not to use the online corpora, which are way bigger than the manually collected ones (and this is certainly their great advantage) because it was necessary to compare texts similar in subject and volume, and written approximately at the same period of time. It is not always technically feasible to restrict the field of search in the online corpora, which makes it difficult to compare the obtained results for the two languages. Results. The collected data shows that in the Mongolian newspaper articles the plurality markers are used about 3,5 times as frequently as in the Buryat ones. Along with it, Middle Mongolian plurality markers are known to have been used about four times as frequently as in Modern Mongolian. In the conclusion the author poses questions for further study which arose after obtaining the quantitative data.

Introduction. The article examines traditional themes in the epic repertoire of jangarchi Teltya Lidzhiev, a most talented and original jangarchi, and a performer of songs of the 20th-century prominent rhapsode Eelyan Ovla. Materials. The recordings of Kalmyk folklore made by associates of the Kalmyk Research Institute of Language, Literature and History (present-day KalmSC RAS) during field expeditions in the 1960s – 1990s contain one by the famous jangarchi Teltya Lidzhiev. The recording was made by N. Ts. Bitkeev during a folklore research trip across districts of Kalmykia in the summer of 1970. Goals. At present, thanks to the preserved records of the epic repertoire of jangarchi Teltya Lidzhiev, there is an opportunity to explore the late tradition of the Jangar which existed in the second half of the 20th century. Results. The epic repertoire of Teltya Lidzhiev who was representing Eelyan Ovla’s school consists of an introductory part, a prologue (Kalm. orshl) and ten songs. Teltya Lidzhiev undoubtedly possessed a formulaic language, traditional compositional techniques that ensured the consistency of his narration. The storyteller had carefully elaborated all the stages of each theme and adopted the technique of drawing up formulaic turns and the formulas themselves, as well as compositional ones, to acquire a certain structured basis to build his narrative on. Teltya Lidzhiev’s songs comprise traditional themes of epic narration, such as selection of a hero, saddling of a horse, munitioning of the hero, departure, adversities of the path, arrival in borderlands, entering of the palace, searches, heroic duel, capture and branding, healing of the hero, return, feast. The examination of Teltya Lidzhiev’s songs shows that the traditional epic themes were firmly preserved in the jangarchi’s memory. But at the same time, it should be noted that each performance is unique: a jangarchi constructs his epic text and chooses one or another way of retransmission, the speed of clustering poems during a performance prompted the use of certain traditional formulas but one would certainly build his narrative according to a definite plan of his own. Thus, jangarchi is both a bearer of the tradition and an individual singer.

Introduction. The work deals with folklore stories about the 12-year animal calendar cycle once adopted by Kalmyks and other peoples of Asia, such as Mongols, Buryats, Altaians, Tuvans, etc. Goals. The paper focuses on the shaping of the 12-year-old animal cycle and roles played by traditional folklore animal characters in its formation. The paper defines impacts certain supreme characters made on the establishment of such calendar, the one for Mongols being the Buddha himself. Another distinctive feature of narratives about animals’ participation in the completion of the calendar is that special attention be paid to the camel, whose inclusion therein was hampered by the mouse’s trick. The plot about relations between camel (sometimes deer) and mouse was borrowed even by nations that do not use a 12-year-old animal calendar, and no Asian folklore tradition contains any story about relations between other calendar-included animals. Conclusions. The study concludes the narrative about emergence of a 12-year-old animal cycle is an etiological myth developed from plots depicting controversy between the animals after the calendar was adopted by Mongols in the early 13th century. Folklore materials in the form of other calendar-related plots partially included in the animal epic indicate arrivals of the calendar and writing are somewhat temporally correlated, and delineate potential historical ties between the animal calendar and divination practices.

The name of Taishi Sheareng is well known from historical documents. At the same time, his pre-war biography is unknown. Various sources sometimes contain contradicting information about his origin and the quanitity of his vassals. Due to the circumstances resulting from the fall of the Dzhungar Khanate in 1758, Taisha Sheareng with his vassals ended up in Kalmyk nomad camps on Volga. According to the conclusions of some ivestigations, he was one of the initiators of the migration of the Kalmyks in 1771 from the banks of Volga. After migrating to the borders of the former homeland, Taisha Sheareng was elevated to the rank of Junwang by the Manchu emperor, and the territory of the modern Khovd aimag of Mongolia was defined as the place of residence of his vassals. This publication provides data on the pedigree of Taishi Sheareng and the number of his vassals according to well-known historical chronicles and archival sources.

The historical legends and traditions associated with the name of Andzhatan Lama are well known among the Oirats of Xinjiang and Kalmyks of Russia. In Xinjiang, the history of the creation of Andzhan Kure (1712) and its abbots was always of great interest. At the same time researchers point out about ten monastic names by which the Andzhatan Lama was known According to the opinion of Prof. Ma Dazheng to whom belongs the earliest publication on this topic, the monastic name of Andzhatan Lama was Lubsandzin. The authoritative researcher’s argument was accepted by others and did not raise doubts. However, further research revealed that this name belongs to another famous Buddhist teacher. This article provides for the first time some information about the biography of Andzhatan Lama, discovered by the author during research expeditions and on the basis of some written sources.

The article is devoted to the study of the black bunchuk (sulde) of the Oirat Galdan Boshoktu-khan. It is known that in the culture of nomadic peoples the bunchuk from ancient times served as a symbol of power, or rather was perceived as a symbol of the sacred abode of the genius loci of the ruler and his subjects. The black bunchuk (sulde) Galdan Boshoktu-khan is kept in Inner Mongolia in Ordos. There is no reliable data showing how it got to Ordos and why it is kept there. In the course of the study, a vast corpus of oral legends and ritual actions associated with the offering to the black bunchuk was used.

After the fall of the Dzhungar Khanate in the second half of the 18th century, "the highest approved" official works by order of the Qing authorities appear in Chinese historiography. They are devoted to the "description of the suppression of the Dzhungars". In addition to this, steles were also installed, proclaiming the victory of the Qing emperor over the Dzhungars. One of such steles was installed on Mount Gedeng, which is located near Mongolkure on the modern border of China and Kazakhstan. The stele is known under various names — "Stele on Gedeng Mountain", "Ili Stele on Gedeng Mountain", "Stele on Gedeng Mountain near Mongolkure". The text on the stone stele is written in four languages: Manchu, Chinese, Tibetan and Oirat (‘Clear script’). The article examines the ‘Clear script’ text containing 9 lines and 266 words.

Introduction. The article deals with religious policies that influenced ethnoconfessional military communities in the southeast of the Russian Empire during early modern period. The work provides a first attempt to examine the resettlement of Dzungar Oirat refugees (Russ. zengortsy) from Siberia to the Volga territories and their integration into the Stavropol Kalmyk Host. Materials and Methods. The study analyzes documents of central and local institutions that specify the latter’s attitudes towards both Dzungar arrivals and, at large, irregular units of Kalmyk Christians in steppe border areas. A number of applied techniques inherent to source studies and archaeography made it possible to gain a comprehensive insight into the research materials and reveal certain ties that characterize trends of Russian policies towards the Dzungar question. Results. Clarification of the internal and external reasons to have forced the authorities to conscript Dzungars into the Stavropol Kalmyk Host, i. e. the need to strengthen the latter as a border military-and-police force right after the conflict with the Qing over South Siberian subjects was settled is provided. The paper shows the distribution and infrastructure development of the arrivals across unoccupied lands of the Stavropol Host. Special attention is paid to the biography of Noyon Norbo Danjin, a relative of Amursana who lead Dzungars to the Volga to become a Christian colonel, military judge, and advisor to the Collegium of Foreign Affairs. In terms of discussion, the work outlines the Dzungar conscription in Stavropol-on-Volga historiographically, delineates its correlation to the situation with available sources on contacts between Russia, Qing China, and nomads (Dzungars, Kazakhs). Conclusions. The paper acknowledges the collapse of the Dzungar Khanate proved an enormous geopolitical shift that forced Russia to restructure its external policies across southeastern steppe peripheries and develop its military strength, which brought Dzungar reserve units of the Stavropol Host in significant demand.

Introduction. The paper provides insight into archival sources and shows the development of Kalmykia’s party-Soviet print media during the 1920s and 1930s. Kalmyk Party Organization tended to keep a strong focus on the growth of mass media in the region. So, before 1926 there was only one newspaper in Kalmyk Oblast ― Ulan Khal’mg (Kalm. ‘Red Kalmyk’), while that very year proper witnessed the emergence of multiple periodicals, such as Krasnaya step’ (Russ. ‘Red Steppe’), Kalmytskie izvestiya (Russ. ‘Kalmyk News’), journals Vestnik Kalmytskogo obkoma VKP(b) (Russ. ‘Newsletter of Kalmyk Oblast VKP(b) Committee’), Za rabotu (Russ. ‘Down to Work’), etc. Goals. The study seeks to clarify the impacts of Kalmyk Oblast Party Organization on the development of regional print media. Materials and Methods. The article analyzes multiple ― and authentic ― documents stored at the National Archive of Kalmykia (Party Collection), key research principles being those of objectivity and historicism. Results. The work concludes that issues of print media’s development were regularly discussed at Party conferences, plenums, and meetings of Kalmyk Oblast Party Committee. The latter’s Bureau would employ experienced journalists to strengthen republican and district-level newspapers. The published books and brochures were summarizing political, organizational, and ideological experiences of party organizations. Kalmyk- and Russian-language newspapers and journals were tightening ties between the Party and people, which facilitated an easier implementation of state policies. Thus, print media were used by the Party and its agencies as a means of political mobilization and education.

Introduction. The article deals with the early history of Elista as a city, and makes a first attempt to anthropologically compare urban space at the initial stage of the city’s history to its current conditions. Goals. The paper examines the first and key stage in the formation and development of Elista as center of Kalmyk Autonomous Oblast. Materials. The bulk of analyzed sources are documents contained in the National Archive of the Republic of Kalmykia. Results. The work concludes that the preservation of old buildings to date is a representation of the city’s local memory. As is shown, the preservation of historical architecture proved crucial to such a representation.

Introduction. The proposed publication consists of an introduction, texts of two biographical interviews and comments thereon. Both the conversations took place in Elista (2004, 2017) as part of the research project ‘Everyone Has One’s Own Siberia’ dedicated to the important period in the history of Kalmykia though not yet sufficiently explored by anthropologists and sociologists — the deportation of Kalmyks to Siberia (1943–1956) and related memories. Goals. The project seeks to show the daily survival practices of Kalmyks in Siberia. In the spontaneous biographical interviews focusing on the years of Kalmyk deportation, not only the facts cited are important — of which we would otherwise stay unaware but from the oral narratives — but also the introduced stories of inner life: feelings and thoughts of growing girls. Methods. The paper involves the use of textual analysis and the method of text deconstruction. Results. The transcribed texts show survival and adaptation strategies employed by the young generation of ‘special settlers’ in places of forced residence. For many Kalmyks of that generation, high school was a ‘glass ceiling’, a limitation in life choices. In the narrative of R. Ts. Azydova, we face a today unthinkable social package for KUTV students with children — this illustrates how the korenization policy for indigenous populations in the USSR worked, and provides insight into daily practices of pre-war Elista. The story of T. S. Kachanova especially clearly manifests the ‘language of trauma’, first of all, through the memory of the body, vocabulary of death and displays of laughter. The texts of the interviews shall be interesting to all researchers of Kalmyk deportation and the memory of that period.

Until recently, the Oirat manuscripts from Xinjiang remained inaccessible to researchers due to a number of circumstances. Most of the manuscripts are kept in private collections. According to some data, in the Ili-Kazakh Autonomous Province alone, the Olets living there have more than 300 personal collections, in which, according to rough estimates, there are more than two thousand manuscripts. The Fund of Ancient Manuscripts of National Minorities of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of the PRC, created in the second half of the 1970s, is a large repository of texts in the ‘Clear Script’ of the Oirats. The basis for its creation was manuscripts and xylographs from private collections, which were preserved during the years of the Cultural Revolution thanks to the personal courage of ordinary lovers of book antiquity. The Oirat collection of Xinjiang contains 398 manuscripts and xylographs of various contents: Buddhist texts of the canonical content (sutras, sastras, devotional texts), works of popular Buddhist literature (jatakas, teachings, didactic instructions and sayings, framed novels, etc.), astrological, ritual folklore texts.

The biography of Zaya-pandita Namkaijamtso known as «Moonlight. The Story of Rabjam Zaya Pandita», written by his disciple Radnabhadra, is a well-known work of Mongolian literature of the 17th century. Radnabhadra's work is a valuable source on medieval history, culture and religion of the Oirats. However, information about the biography of the author of this work remains unknown. This article provides some new information about the activity of Zaya Pandita as well as his closest disciple, who was not only a Buddhist monk-chronicler, but also a translator and zealous figure of the Oirat culture.

Goals. The paper examines the issue of visual images in the everyday ritual practice of ordinary Buddhists in Buryatia. The relevance of studying rare Buddhist photographs as a historical and cultural source cannot be questioned, since this perspective reveals unknown aspects in the formation of Buryat identity and the role of Buddhism in this process. Materials. The work investigates the collection of rare photographs at the Institute for Mongolian, Buddhist and Tibetan Studies (Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences) and photographs of the ritual complex ‘khoimor-gungurba’ collected during expeditions of the 1950-1970s and in the early 21st century. Results. A method (metalanguage) of describing Buddhist photo images was developed during preliminary works to clarify the mechanism of actualizing this material in Buddhist discourse, including elements as follows: a mechanism of image selection; cultural context; ritual and social goals; nature of materials; registration of believers’ reactions to visual images. The paper shows a close relationship between the local visual practice of Buddhists and the formation of Buryat identity from the late 19th towards the 21st century, which is concluded from a comparative analysis of the two databases. After a comparative reconstruction of the structures of the collections, the work argues that the everyday ritual practice of praying before these photos is an important aspect in the formation of local identity. The most interesting finding of the study is that pre-revolutionary images of Buryat Lamas are central in the culture of the photo-visual practices of Buryat Buddhists nowadays. The comparative analysis confirmed that a fundamental change in the transmission of the Buddhist tradition in Buryatia, social changes, and the economic situation led to a change in the development of the traditional Buddhist culture of the Buryats that currently prioritizes autocephaly and the preservation of ethnic identity.